


Saudade

by Spylace



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aka Bucky Barnes' long drawn out recovery, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Returns, Domestic, Fluff and Angst, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loss of Identity, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Trauma, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mind the Tags, Minor Violence, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Sickfic, Tissue Warning, Winter Solider Warning, and your head please
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-02-12 05:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2097240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>—Or "the love that remains"</p><p>There are certain things even Captain America cannot protect his best friend from.</p><p>In the end, Steve doesn’t have to look for the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier comes to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What if loss of memories and his left arm wasn't the only thing Bucky had to deal with?
> 
> The dude has been frozen on and off for seventy years, that's got to take toll right?
> 
> Inspired by many, many works of art depicting Bucky in pain or otherwise mortal peril :3

In the end, Steve doesn’t have to look for the Winter Soldier—the Winter Soldier comes to him.

He hears from Nat who heard from Sharon (now of the CIA since all major intelligence organizations have washed their hands of Shield and the parasite it brooded) that they have the Winter Soldier in custody; apprehended when his arm set off the metal detector at the Smithsonian.

Natasha, who is world-wearier than he is, thinks that it was intentional.

Steve likes to think that Bucky just wants to come home.

However, without Shield, Fury, it’s no longer a simple matter of exchanging prisoners. Tony left no less than twenty-nine messages on what the folks are calling _Hydra-gate_ but there is nothing on the nameless man the CIA picks up from the museum.

Of the dozen Hydra agents captured and tried, only one has heard of the Winter Soldier. All commit suicide in their first week. Agent Rumlow, quarantined in the intensive care unit, might know more but he’s not talking.

Their only lead is the Stark Industries logo stamped across the metal wrist and the smear of red on his left shoulder. They call Tony but Tony doesn’t remember leaving a ‘metal-death arm’ and leaves Steve another twelve messages on top of the twenty-nine he sent before, during and after Shield.

Natasha is in a violet suit, clean-cut and restrictive like she’s someone’s overpriced secretary. Steve knows for a fact that her heels are detachable and can stab someone’s throat on a short notice.

“I should be an archeologist.” She smirks because no one taught her how to say hello. “It’s a lot more exciting than I thought it’d be.”

“Har-har.” Steve says even as he shoots off a text to Sam to tell him not to expect him today. Or tomorrow. Maybe a rain check?

Sam responds, ‘Getting old?’

His friends are terrible people.

Nat brings him up to speed.

The Winter Soldier was arrested approximately forty hours ago. Sharon leaked it at hour thirty. The CIA is now in contact with Pepper Potts and by proxy, Tony Stark. He’s on his way to personally confirm the arm’s authenticity. Accompanying him will be Natalie Rushman and Steve Rogers.

“How are we doing this?” Steve asks, constipated. He’s already wrestled one governmental arm; he does not relish the idea of fighting another.

“We are making an exchange.”

“We?”

“Tony and I.” Natasha confirms. “The arm is the property of Stark Industries. The CIA isn’t very happy about it. Their house psychic took one look at him and ran the other way.”

“What does that mean?”

Nat floors the gas. There is a pit forming in his stomach. He fears he already knows what it is.

“Imagine a room with furniture, pictures, cups, dishes, clothing.”

“Sounds like a riot.” Steve quips and regrets it at the quirk of her lips.

“Imagine all of that taken away, packed up and cleared. The carpets replaced and the walls painted that not even the impression remains. Try to put it all back.” Her expression is neutral behind her glasses. “He’s been asking for you.”

He nods.

“It come be a trap.” She says with a casual air as though it’s stupid to consider it might not be.

“I don’t care.” Steve replies and it’s true. He was willing to give up the shield for Bucky. He tore down Shield for Bucky. The sentiments haven’t changed. He will always be that stupid kid from Brooklyn. Never backing down from fights because he knew Bucky had his six. Steve failed Bucky on the helicarrier. In the Alps when he failed to look. Not this time.

“Here.” Nat says, handing him a gun which is more a sign of trust than anything else.

“Thanks.” But Steve has no intention of using it against his best friend. He tucks it inside his jacket. It’s rude to refuse a gift. “But I won’t be needing it.”

She snorts at his naivety as they are guided underground.

 

The CIA has Bucky in a glorified closet with a two-way mirror, stripped down to his underwear and hooked up to wires, steel bars separating him and his interrogator.

His breath catches when he sees the scars, some foreign, others familiar. He’s got the scratched knees from a game of stickball. A pale starburst on his back when he caught a shrapnel. But he doesn’t recognize the white lines following the seams of his body, almost as though someone cut him open before putting him back together again. The skin on his left shoulder is livid. Steve can’t look at the metal arm.

Tony, early, fixes his face into a facsimile of a grin.

“Spangles, my favorite antique. How long has it been?”

“Tony.” He says evenly. “I got your message.”

Before Tony can toss back a sharp retort, Bucky says, “I want to see him.”

The CIA interrogator is a man with the shoulders of a linebacker and hands the size of baseball mitts. He mops his forehead with a dirty handkerchief, his shirt stained around the pits and the v of his chest.

“Listen smartass, we can’t call Captain America for every Loony Tune that shows up at this place.”

Bucky’s gaze swings lethargically to the mirror where Steve is standing. It’s like he already knows he’s there.

Steve tunes out everything as he catalogues the changes in his friend. From the helicarrier, the war, from Brooklyn. Bucky had been suffering during their fight. He is worse now. He’s clammy and pale. There is a fine tremor on his lips and with a guilty pang, Steve realizes that the only reason the CIA haven’t cuffed his right arm alongside the left is because it’s broken.

The CIA’s license telepath skirts up to them and confirms what they already know. Bucky remembers nothing. And that hurts more than the bullets, the flu, fists and kicks to his kidney. He clenches his fists.

The woman jerks back with a shudder, glaring as though the source of all great evils can be found in Bucky’s hunched form. Meanwhile, Bucky sits quiet, compliant, head bowed in penance and metal arm soldered to the table in front of him.

“But I knew him.” Bucky rasps in a hoarse whisper. “I knew him.”

Steve presses against the glass. In the background, the CIA and Stark Industries haggle and bargain on the price of his best friend.

“I’m going in.” He says and before the words have fully formed to spring from his tongue, his hand is on the door, twisting on the doorknob when it doesn’t give.

“He’s been compromised.” Natasha reminds him.

“He’s my best friend.” Steve shoots back.

“A best friend that tried to kill you.” Tony reminds them all unhelpfully.

Something is wrong.

“What’s going on?”

They’ve got Bucky hooked up to machines that spit out ink if he so much as blinks an eye. The spectators, technicians, profilers, gasp and gesture at the pages like it’s Revelation 1:17.

“Please.” Bucky says politely. “I want to see him.”

Steve grits his teeth.

“Open this door.”

Natasha says, “If he’s still under Hydra’s control—“

“He’s not, he saved me.”

“He’s not your friend Steve.”

Steve thumps the door with a fist. The interrogator jumps. Bucky stares at the mirror.

“I won’t leave him.”

 

Tony’s smile is toothier than usual as he and Director Gringas shake hands.

Bucky is in a bad shape. He received very little medical attention during CIA custody. Mostly in the form of cold showers and methamphetamines. His arm was never reset. He was offered no food, no water and no sleep. Steve can count the ribs as they bring him out. The metal arm hangs ruined from his shoulder.

“He’s deteriorating.” Agent Carter says briskly as she walks them out. “We don’t know why.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow.

“You want us to take care of the body.”

Steve hisses at her insensitivity as he wraps his jacket over Bucky’s bare form.

Somewhere over Pennsylvania, Tony scans Bucky’s prosthetic and sucks his teeth. Grim, he orders medical teams on standby.

 

“Stark knows what he’s doing.” Says Clint, a recent refugee of ~~Stark~~ Avenger Towers.

“It’s Bucky.”

Words are inadequate. Bucky is. He pushes against Clint’s hand, straining his neck as he peers through the glass. Tony’s got a team of doctors, guns and Natasha trained on Bucky and he still looks like he doesn’t know where to even begin. Steve gets glimpses through teal scrubs and body armor.

Then the monitors scream.

A doctor barks at an orderly and they manage to find a pulse before Steve crashes into the room. He tries to intercept a surgeon but she expertly dodges his arm.

Tony rocks back on his heels, wipes a bloodied hand against his face and stains his mask.

Clint sits him down when his knees grow weak.

“It’s bad isn’t it?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony is a [genius](http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8g2r8Hrdz1qdv42bo1_500.png), it's a [fact](http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8gflutylr1qb34x4.png).

It takes a while for Tony to come out.

He keeps his back to the window the entire time, fiddling with the million and one lines pushed into Bucky’s skin. While Steve appreciates the dedication, he wants answers. Tony isn’t even a doctor.

“Sir currently holds three PhDs.” Jarvis corrects politely.

Clint whistles.

“Overcompensating much?”

Tony closes the doors behind him, shaken and afraid like he’s been told death is a possible thing. He snaps the rubber gloves off one by one and tosses them in the trash, washing his hands over and over again as though it might wear away the cold from his joints.

Steve is torn between running to Bucky’s side and staying. But this is important. Tony looks like someone just died. No, no—he can’t think that. He can’t think like that.

Putting on a bright smile, Tony says through gritted teeth, “I need a drink.”

 

“Bruce is flying in tomorrow.” Tony assures them, tossing back three fingers of a 1960 malt whisky like it’s water. “We’ll know our options them but Steve. It’s bad.”

Steve shakes his head.

“What do you mean it’s bad? Bucky’s fine. He just needs some rest.”

Tony’s eyes search the room for support but finds nothing.

“Jarvis, put up the screen.”

Panels light up one by one. There are charts, x-rays, documents and compilation of data.

“Preliminary reports show signs of cryogenesis. Basically, he’s like you except he’s been thawed on and off for the better part of a century.”

“We knew that.” It’s in Natasha’s files. She and Clint opted to remain in the surgical suite, waiting for the sedatives to wear off.

“Sure.” Tony allows, bringing up a picture of blueprints and the science behind it. “What you didn’t know is that your buddy got a dose of what turned you in to a paragon of virtue.” Howard’s face is on screen. Zola skulks in the background and Tony grimaces. “That is according to what Zola turned into Weapon Plus.”

The other man sighs and gives up the pretense of moderation to take a pull from the bottle. “I’m no expert but I’m guessing he didn’t have all this hardware before either.”

The screen wipes itself and divides into four sections.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. He follows the y-section before realizing they are scars. They cut across the ribs and down the seam of his hips. Beneath, Bucky’s skeleton is pure white.

Steve stammers, “I don’t understand.”

Tony sighs.

“I’m going to go on a limb and say that a baseline human being wouldn’t have survived this—I’m not sure you would have survived this _procedure_. From the looks of it, your bestie did just barely. He’s got an estimated fifty-two kilos of steel reinforcing his skeleton. It started from his arm and.” Tony waves his hand. “I’d rather not speculate.”

Steve takes a breath.

“Are you alright?”

Tony stares at him in disbelief.

“No.” The other man says suddenly. “I’m not okay. I don’t think I will be okay. A few days ago I learned that the Winter Soldier, who turned out to be your bosom buddy, who _golly gee_ supposedly died in a war, killed my parents but oh hey—it looks like the old man might have deserved it.”

“Don’t say that.” Steve says softly. “He couldn’t have known it would turn out like this.”

Tony looks away first.

“You should go see him.” His voice has an ominous ring to it. “He’s been asking for you.”

 

Before he goes in, Natasha pulls him aside to warn, “If he so much as blinks the wrong way, I will shoot him. The CIA gave him up for a reason and I want to know why.”

“You think he’s still with Hydra.” Steve guesses, unimpressed.

Natasha doesn’t even bat an eye.

“He’s dangerous.”

“He’s Bucky.”

“When do I get a turn?” Clint asks, cupping his hands around his eyes to peer through the glass. “You think he’ll sign my boobs if I... ow Nat!”

“Anything else?” He asks sharply.

Natasha shrugs. Clint gives him a thumbs up.

“Go get ‘im tiger.”

 

Bucky’s resting in his bed. Not strapped down but _resting_ , his eyes insist, though the shadows in his flesh are forbidding and dark. Steve has a half a mind to tell Tony to turn up the heat because it’s cold in here. His heart pitter-patters just like the time he asked Barbara Robinson for a dance (she said no) and he sinks into a plastic hair, not knowing what to say.

“Steve?” Bucky asks muzzily, his hand doped and swimming awkwardly against the sheets. Steve lunges forward to press their flesh-and-blood palms together. Natasha will be sore at him but he just needs to make sure that this is not a mirage. Bucky is real and guilt caulks his throat at how long it’s taken him to find him.

He thinks, with a touch of hysteria, this must be what his ma felt, what Bucky felt, all the endless nights at his bedside with a priest in attendance. Watching Steve fight off anything from an ordinary cold to the scarlet fever.

Bucky is the worrier. He is the team’s sniper. Safe from the line of fire.

Steve would have taken back all the fights with Hodges, O’Reilly or even McGinnis on the docks if he could have spared Bucky this pain.

“Hey Buck.” He croaks even though CIA told him that Bucky doesn’t remember. Not really. The human mind could only take so much before it snapped. Hydra had done a bang-up job to make sure Bucky wouldn’t want to remember. But he had his best friend back. Bucky came looking for him. That was enough. It had to be.

“How do you feel?” What a stupid question. Anyone could tell Bucky was not okay.

Bucky wraps his fingers around a thumb, squeezing weakly.

“Are you?” There are so many words crowded on the tip of his tongue. They range from how are you, do you need anything, what do you need, what can I do, I’m scared, are you scared, I don’t know what to do. What he does end up saying is, “Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Steve Rogers.” Bucky says quietly. “You’re the man on the bridge.”

Steve beams. “That’s right.”

“You know me.”

“I do.” and he raises their hands, leaning his head against them in a gesture of trust. If Natasha decides to pull the trigger now, she will have to do it through him. “Welcome back Buck.”

“Why do you call me that?” Bucky asks curiously. “I went to the museum. They said that my name was James Buchanan Barnes.”

“It’s a nickname.”

Bucky murmurs, “But why couldn’t I kill you?”

His innocence is like a slap to the face.

“I don’t know.” His voice cracks in the middle. He squeezes Bucky’s hand. “You’re not getting rid of me quite yet.”

Bucky squeezes back. His eyes slide shut.

“Good.”

 

Bruce Banner, more famously known as the incredible Hulk, is the world’s foremost expert on Erskine’s serum and its many variations.

What’s left in Bucky, he explains, what Zola replicated, has rewritten Bucky’s biochemistry. His blood vector barely registers as human. Conventional medicine won’t work on him. They cut him off morphine and continue to give him fluids.

There is another flurry of tests. All designed to look like medical torture even though Steve knows better than that. They’re supposed to make Bucky better and he continues to hold hands as others work around him because he can’t bear to let go.

Bucky looks at him, only at him as though he is the only one who exists. Blood samples are taken, then hair samples, skin biopsies without a pause. But Steve can’t even ask them what’s going on with his best friend so Bucky does it.

“What is my status?”

“Oh um.” Bruce startles at being addressed.

“Don’t spare the good news.” Bucky snorts and it’s so Bucky it’s almost like having his best friend back again. But the haunted look in his glass-colored eyes haven’t gone away. His muscles coil taut beneath under his palms. Bucky is fine. He has to be. They’re just delaying the inevitable.

Bruce wrings his hands.

“You say you’ve been awake, for a week? Two weeks?”

Steve nods, not trusting himself to speak.

“What’s going on?”

“Tony told you most of it,” He winces. “I think.”

“I saved all the good parts for you.” Tony says through the intercom. He squeezes hard enough for the bones in Bucky’s hand to shift. It’s the only thing that grounds him as Tony waves from behind the glass. Natasha stands beside him and that’s enough to fill Steve with dread.

Bruce pulls up a screen. A screen like the one Tony showed him outside the surgical suite. The one filled with bones that were not bones, metal with square edges and screws stuck in between.

“If you look at his neuroimaging, you can tell he’s improved significantly in the past twelve hours. This is not a cause to keep someone like him cryogenically preserved. It would have been.” Bruce pauses. “Efficient for his handlers to wipe him.”

Bucky nods along as though it’s happening to someone else. As though the conversation happening overhead has nothing to do with him whatsoever.

“Tony mentioned that.” He throws a glance outside. Tony looks away, ashamed.

“Steve.” Bruce says nervously, taking his glasses off and putting them on again. “Regardless of what you may think, Hydra didn’t use their technology to keep him young. They did it to keep him alive.”

Steve feels the other shoe drop. The room shrinks around him.

“What are you saying?”

Bruce looks down. At Bucky who lays still, knowing what comes next.

“He’s dying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the movie, Bucky has a metal arm. No matter what the comic books say, that's not how an arm works. It can't just stick to the stump of the amputated arm like a normal prosthetic, not with the range and movement it has. Not with the way it can knock Steve's shield out of orbit with very little damage. 
> 
> Correct me if I'm wrong here but whatever it is it's connected to would have to be reinforced. And not just the shoulder socket but his spine, his hips. Knowing Hydra, they probably went overboard. 
> 
> My theory is that Bucky is MCU's very own Wolverine. He doesn't have super healing but he does have a metal skeleton...


	3. Chapter 3

Losing Bucky is not like being shot through the gut, stabbed or being punched in the face. The fear had always been there, in the periphery, circling like ravens in the woods of Normandy pecking at corpses in the snow. The pain does not fade. It is as sharp and ragged as when Bucky fell from his reach and Steve could not find him in his past life or the next.

When Bucky fell from the train, Steve looked away. This time, he cannot.

Bucky makes a small noise and Steve realizes his knuckles are bone white around his hand. Immediately, he lets go. Terrified that Bucky might break apart if he touches him wrong. Knowing that he’s already hurt him once over.

Steve feels sick. Bucky’s hand falls limp at his side and he frowns, looks up through the dark brush of his eyelashes as though questioning why. He grips the sheets, fingers searching for a shred of comfort in touching something solid and Steve finds himself paralyze, rooted to his chair as the clinical observations wash over him. Everyone holds their breath.

“The files state that he is the result of Weapon Plus; they never stopped trying to recreate the serum after you. On the one hand, you have me. On the other,” He gazes down and lifts a shoulder in a sad shrug. “He’s either generation four or five—they’re the only ones unaccounted for. But they underestimated his immune response. His body is rejecting the implants.”

“So get them out.” Steve says blankly. It’s obvious.

Bruce shakes his head.

“The surgery will be extremely invasive.”

Before he knows it, Steve is outside. His stomach threatens to fold itself in half.

He should be used to disappointment shouldn’t he? He just got Bucky from death, from Hydra and it turns out he’s been delaying the inevitable. He buries his face in his hands. Bucky doesn’t need to hear how his body will fail him, organs shutting down one by one, bones splintering beneath the weight of prosthetic metal. He breathes through his nose, willing the nausea away.

Bruce follows him out. Others keep their distance.

Bucky would have sat his ass down and made him count backwards from ten to one.

He squeezes his eyes shut.

“What are our options?” He croaks.

“It’s been seventy years Steve. He’ll never survive it. Even if we get all the metal out, his bones are literally full of holes. We’ll have to reinforce his skeleton with something else. At best,” Bruce rubs the green from his wrists. “You’re looking at him in bed for life.”

“There’s got to be another way.” And he turns to Tony because Tony is filled with crazy, insane ideas that shouldn’t work but do. He’s a genius, smarter than Howard who built things because they were needed and not because he could.

Tony also looks pained like he wants to hide behind Bruce’s demure bulk and at once, he is ashamed of his uncharitable thoughts. Tony didn’t have to do this. Shield isn’t the only organization affected by his decision to shut it down. People lost their lives in the fallout. Good people and bad. Natasha holds on to her cover even though everyone knows what they are. Tony had his life’s work posted on Facebook though in a time-honored American tradition, he hired a legion of lawyers to take care of it.

“We might be able to slow the degeneration if we put him in a cryotank.” Tony offers lamely.

“We’re not putting him back in that thing.” Steve snaps.

Tony turns to Bruce.

“Extremis?” He suggests.

Bruce runs a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.

“It might react badly to the serum. For all we know, he’ll go off like a firecracker.”

To Steve, he says. “Either way, we need to get him in a better shape.” A dark look crawls over the doctor’s face. “He’s anemic and dehydrated. We’ve started him on fluids but his system won’t be able to handle solids for a few days. I’m not sure he’s eaten in the past decade.”

Steve swallows.

“Get Bucky healthy, anything else?”

“Make him comfortable.” After an awkward cough, Bruce adds, “I’m sorry.”

Natasha falls into a step beside him.

“He’s not Hydra.” Steve says, trying to summon the courage to go back in, to go be at Bucky’s side like he needs him to be.

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I am.”

“Are you willing to bet everyone’s life on it?” She asks, staring through her red, red eyelashes

“When it comes to Bucky, yes.” He replies coldly.

Clint bumps her with his shoulder.

“That’s good enough for me.”

 

“Why did you come back?”

And at once, he is horrified by his outburst.

Bucky turns to look at him, expression as sober as a nun’s. His finger twitches like he wants to touch but can’t quite figure out how. They dig into the sheets at his side, into the mattress like he wants to tear holes in it and maybe live inside. The Bucky in front of him is a contradiction of memories and impulse. Steve wants to hug him, hold him and never let go. At the same time, he wants to flee, arrested by recognition in the glass-colored eyes.

Steve settles for circling his fingers around a bony wrist, trying to channel some of his warmth, health and strength through their skin.

“You look at me,” Bucky says. “Like I’m worth something.”

“You are. Of course you are.”

Why does it hurt so much to stand there and listen?

Why is love such a painful thing?

“Your friend.” Bucky says. “I wanted to give him back to you.”

“Bucky, no.”

Bucky’s face falls. Steve sees how he spaces out dreaming, muscles shifting and coiling unconsciously. The medical monitor picking up tiny cues and signals in the brain that translate to bright peaks on the monitor, glaring in their sharpness and Steve wants to laugh. He is in a goddamned nightmare. His best friend has been shot, tortured and abused, his memory wiped so thoroughly even CIA’s telepath cannot make heads or tails of it. And still, Bucky is thinking of him. Only him.

“You listen here James Buchanan.” Steve says fiercely. “You’re my friend. You’re the kid who stuck up for me against those bullies. You’re the one who got into trouble for breaking Mr. Blake’s window even though it was my fault. You cleaned his store every Sunday for a month to pay him back. You’re the guy I trust to have my six.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Lots you don’t know.” Steve counters. “You were always dumb.”

“What else is there?” Bucky asks curiously.

He pulls up a chair.

“I can tell you, I can tell you what you were like. But you’ve got to promise me Buck.” His voice breaks off at the end and he places a hand on the side of Bucky’s face. “Promise you’ll get better.”

“I’ll try.”

 

There is a certain thrill in going undercover. He understands better why Natasha tries out different identities like they are dresses on sale. It’s incredibly easy once you know how. Slight changes like glasses or caps, addictive details that gets you past security and into the room of the last Hydra agent they have on hand.

“Cap.”

Rumlow’s eyes glitter behind the breathing mask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading :D


	4. Chapter 4

“I think I look pretty good all things considered.”

Steve’s lived through war. He’s seen men die, shrapnel wounds, hacked limbs, amputees, disease and gangrene. Rumlow gives him a pause and not just because he smells like a slab of meat. He forces himself to look when the man tilts his head to stare at him with his one good eye, the side of his jaw hanging like a beef patty on the spit. The doctors say that he will never recover fully. It’s a miracle that he survived. It’s a miracle that Bucky is alive. Yet the miracle does not give weight to mercy. The divine grace does not tender his heart or infect his mind with pity. He does not care Rumlow didn’t die.

“What?” Rumlow rasps, vocal chords catching against his jaw. “We worked together for six months and you can’t bother to say hello?”

He closes the curtains behind him. Rumlow is curious but not alarmed. Not yet. His hands stay in place, suspended in slings over the bed. He does not reach for the panic button. The time is long past for that. But he just wants to talk. Rumlow’s always liked to hear himself talk.

“How are you?” He asks stonily because his ma raised him with manners.

“That’s better.” Rumlow’s tied up. Bandaged like the mummy from a Three Stooges act. But he makes himself comfortable and cocks his head back. Steve wants to punch him in the dick. “Can’t complain. This ain’t the Ritz. So what can I do for you Cap?”

“The Winter Solder.”

“Ah. Found that out did you?”

Steve doesn’t realize he’s grabbed the other man until the monitors are screaming.

“You knew!”

“He was the asset long before I got on the scene.” Rumlow wheezes, laughter punctuating every syllable. “We scooped out so much of his brain I’m surprised he could find his ass without a map. Your boy is gone.”

Natasha’s gun sits heavy in his pocket. The hospital did nothing to search it. They don’t know that their John Doe is Hydra or else the press would be camped out front. They don’t know that this many hurt Bucky or that Steve is about to hurt him more.

“He remembered me. He came back to _me_. There has to be a way to undo this.”

Rumlow flashes teeth. His face is mostly teeth. Every bone and tendon shifts under the melted flesh like the labyrinth pattern of pink coral.

“Leave it to the professionals Cap, this ain’t you.”

Steve lets go in disgust and Rumlow lands with a hard thump. Despite his antipathy towards anything Hydra, Rumlow is right. This isn’t him.

He threads an IV around his pinky, thumbing back the dial. Now it’s Rumlow’s turn to be afraid.

“What the hell are you playing at?” The man bites off half-belligerent as the morphine cuts off.  

“I looked through Hydra’s files. There was nothing on the Winter Soldier.”

“You know how it goes. Not even Stark can hack paper.”

“There’s nothing left? No backup files?” He demands.

“We burned that shit when we upgraded.” Rumlow answers with no small amount of glee. “His last mission was supposed to be you.”

“Good.”

“What?”

“That means there’s no one else that can hurt him.” He clarifies.

Steve grins a little and lets go of the line.

“You’re right. It’s not me.” And as Rumlow gapes in shock and betrayal, he nods, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

 

Clint comes to pick him up. The doctors aren’t very happy with him but they’re hardly going to agree with Hydra scum over Captain America.

“Hey, you alright?”

“Yeah,” He says, when he can pry his jaws open long enough to answer. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“It’s cool. What are friends for?”

But when they arrive back at the Tower, Bucky is not there. He’s not in the surgical suite, or the recovery room or the medical ward. Steve panics (what if Bucky thought he abandoned him) and Jarvis explains in the smallest amount of words that Bucky is upstairs.

The elevator takes too long and he takes the stairs two at a time. Clint waves him off, unrepentantly pressing the upward arrow.

“Oh hey Cap.” Tony greets when he runs in through the stairwell. He immediately holds his hands up when Steve squeezes in front of him, rubbing circles into his best friend’s back as Bucky retches over the sink.

“Hi.” Bucky says miserably. He rests his head against Steve’s chest.

“We tried to feed him.” Bruce explains chagrined.

Steve combs the damp hair back in a ponytail and thanks Natasha for the red scrunchy.

“Wow, this is actually worse than the time we got in your pa’s liquor cabinet?”

“ _No_.” Tony makes a theatrical gasp in the background about fallen idols. Steve ignores him.

“Yeah?” Bucky coughs. He peers up at him through wet eyelashes, expression stained with something that makes his gut clench. Bucky never stared at him like that; Bucky always stared at him like that. His lips quirking on ends with rueful affection because nine times out of ten, Steve got into trouble and needed help straightening it out.

“Yeah.” Steve confirms as he sits him down.

Clint waltzes into the room, fresh from a three-floor ride to which Natasha says, “I told you.”

“We started with broth.” Bruce hands him a mug.

Steve takes a sip and gags as it torques the skin off the roof of his tongue.

Tony tsks, “He’s burning through calories faster than Kim Kardashian on US Weekly.” Natasha shoots him an unimpressed look. “This is as bland as it gets unless you want Gerger.”

Clint grimaces from real experience.

“Ick.”

“He can’t keep anything down?”

“Not even juice.” Bruce answer tiredly. “At this point, it’s not worth the dehydration. We’ll keep him on fluids and we can try it again later.”

But Bucky should eat something. He deserves _something_.

Steve feels helpless as they hold hands. They took the metal one off. Soldering had ruined the plates in his lower arm and Tony wrote the arm off as a loss. He doesn’t care if he never sees it again. But it bothers him that he doesn’t know if they asked Bucky about it.

“Wait,” He tells him. “Wait here, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”

Steve runs to the penny store he’d seen jogging around the tower, hidden under the awnings and graffiti and gratuitous souvenir shops. He bags a bunch of popsicles and doesn’t wait for the fifty-something storeowner to shakily count out the bills. He takes the elevator this time and everyone’s still in the same place.

The popsicles are dumped on the coffee table.

“You said he can’t eat solids so I thought.”

“That’s perfect.”

Steve had resented Bruce before for experimenting on himself when he could have easily ended up like the Red Skull or worse. But it makes him a hypocrite and he’s stupidly grateful for the man’s approval as he examines the packages.

“He can try one and see if he can keep it down.”

“Go on.” Steve tells Bucky encouragingly.

But Bucky seems baffled by the riot of colors. His fingers hover between orange and lemon before they fold into his palms, squeezed against his belly.

Clint doesn’t miss a beat and sleekly fishes grape from the pile.

“Ooh, purple. My fav.” He winks.

Natasha rolls her eyes and unfolds herself from her seat. She makes her decision a natural extension of her movement and graceful pivots away with a cherry-flavored popsicle.

Bruce takes green and Tony pouts until Bruce elbows him in the ribs. He takes orange as a consolation prize and now there is only blue and yellow left on the table. Steve would love to give Bucky both. Lemon was his favorite before the war and his favorite color has been blue. But it’s meaningless if Steve chooses it for him. Isn’t it?

“Yellow.” He says shyly and Steve beams.

He tears the wrapper off since Bucky only has one hand and waits anxiously for the first bite.

It comes out in a rush.

“Do... doyoulikeit?”

Bucky hums around the frozen treat, eyes crinkling.

“Sure do. It reminds me of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow it's been two years since I've updated this. Hi guys. I didn't remember a lot of this story so I had to re-read it and fix some (read: a lot) of it. Any discrepancies or issues are my mistakes. I don't remember my 2014!self having this much trouble wrangling sentences into submission. Read for the gratuitous Bucky-feels. Thanks!


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